


Negotiations

by Albatrossqueen



Category: Young Justice, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albatrossqueen/pseuds/Albatrossqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapper has to get Cat to talk about something she’s trying to hide.</p><p>A old, old request by damnsmartblueboxes, from Tues 24th, January 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiations

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a prompt I filled two years ago on tumblr, but never transferred over to ff.net, so I've posted it here instead so I have an additional record of it. Do not expect high quality from this, just be amused. 
> 
> You can find the original here:  
> http://albatrossqueen.tumblr.com/post/16394845588/negotiations

//

Snapper flicked his eyes open in the darkness. Starro – Snapper’s white cat – was clawing at him, and hissing. Snapper sat up best he could with the animal attached to his side.

“Shush Starro. What’s gotten into you huh? Your namesake back to rain destruction on the earth?”

Starro only hissed, as the building started to shake, but this wasn’t the kind of quiet shaking that rolls to a high like a wave within the Earth’s crust, it was the kind of infrequent, violent shaking that occurs with large feet mucking about.

“Why do supervillians always have to pick nighttime to be active?” Snapper muttered as he stumbled out of bed, putting on socks and other clothing items, “Don’t they ever realize that people have things to do in the morning?”

Snapper fumbled over to his dress counter and opened on of the drawers, pulling out his old JLA signal device from when he was the team’s every-man ‘mascot’.

// ELSEWHERE

Against the backdrop of a city being ravaged by a monstrous gray creature with spikes poking out of its back, a short women with blond hair in a pink powersuit stands in the middle of a parking lot, wires wrapped around her ears, microphone in hand.

“This is Cat Grant” she says, “reporting from Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, where Doomsday is currently engaged in battle with Red Tornado.” She moves her free hand up to the wire in her ear before continuing to speak. “We now have confirmation that additional Justice League members Superman, Wonder Women, and the Flash are on their way to the scene and should arrive momentarily.”

// SIMULTANEOUSLY

Snapper fumbled out of his townhouse door – now dressed – just as the Flash whisked by, dropping a file into Snappers hands. Snapper flipped through it mindlessly. It was about that Cat Grant women. Sure as a newscaster she was bound to cover superhero and metahuman events and villain attacks, but the whole thing seemed to reek of a conspiracy to the JLA. She had been reporting on near every major case in the last month. This occurred no matter how far away or random the attacks were. She was always there with a crew, sometime even before the heroes themselves. Snapper sighed as he closed the file and shifted it into his bag.  _I thought I had retired from all of this,_ Snapper thought,  _but I guess they still need me. The average guy, sorting our their PR problems. They really should hire someone for this. I’ve got classes to teach in the morning, and high school drama is enough to deal with without superhero sitting._  Yet Snapper reluctantly saddled up on his motorcycle and started off to where he would find Ms. Grant, on the scene reporting. And getting in the way.

// LATER

Snapper pulled in to the lot from which GBS was reporting with Cat Grant live on the scene. He parked his motorcycle close to the news van. He sighed as he slipped his helmet off and carried it loose in his hand, covering his bag. In the background Snapper could see streaks of red and yellow as the heroes worked to defeat the towering Doomsday, who was even now in the process of pulling roofs off of buildings.

“Stop the tape Danny.” Cat said. “Sir you really shouldn’t be out here.”

Snapper shuffled up to the pairing, and stood next to Danny. “I could say the same thing to you Ms. Grant.” Snapper said while smiling, and pulled a card out of his pocket, “Doomsday is one of the most dangerous villains on the rosters. But I’ve got JLA clearance, and the Flash knows I’m here.”

“It’s the medias job to cover important news breaking events. The people have a right to know.”

“Yes, they certainly do. But we both know there is a little bit more than the regular news reporting going on here. So you either stop this charade and tell  _me_ what’s going on, or I leave you to the Bats.” Snapper put his hands up perpendicular to his shoulders and shrugged, “It’s your choice.”

Cat smiled like a siren calling home and slaughtered over to Snapper, poking him in the chest with her microphone. “And why should I listen to you? You can’t do anything to me. You have no powers and you have no skills. I’ve covered all of the superheros from here to LA – and even some from out of the country. I’ve been on worse battlefields than this before. You don’t scare me.”

“Of course I don’t. Mister Snapper Carr the joke sidekick of the JLA. But look lady, I’ve gone fist-to-fist with the Joker before. You don’t know anything about fear until you’ve got that guy’s knives to your face. Plus I have at least three Lantern members ready to answer any call I make to JLA headquarters. Me or the Bats. Your pick.”

“Fine.” Cat said, snorting. She tossed her microphone over to Danny, who caught it awkwardly while trying to balance the camera on zher shoulder. “I guess I’ll pick you.”

Snapper smiled and shook his head.  _She thinks she has one over on me,_  Snapper thought, and lead Cat over to his motorcycle, tossing her his extra helmet while slipping his own on.

//

Snapper sat down in the squishy dinner booth as Cat slipped into her side. After awkwardly sitting about making chat about small things, when the pair received their orders – Coffee and cherry pie for Snapper and a slice of lemon meringue for Cat – they started up on the issue at hand.

Cat leaned over the table while speaking, fork of pie in hand, and said “Well, now that you’ve got my attention what are you going to do with it? This isn’t an interrogation room, and I know the rules of recording. You can’t tape this conversation for evidence of anything because I’m not giving you that consent.”

“You know,” Snapper said, raising an eyebrow, “that  _not_  giving your consent to be taped makes the whole set up a bit more suspicious?”

Cat swallowed her pie bite and waved her fork at Snapper, “That’s not really the point now is it? If the JLA thinks I’m worth questioning about lord knows what, having a tape or not will hardly sway any of their minds. I’d know. I’ve talked to them all.”

“No, you’ve  _interviewed_  them. Very important distinction there.”

“Oh like you really know them so well. You’re just their little PR dog, keeping all the civil ans in a row when the fear of villains doesn’t.”

“While I might be a bit a PR person, I’m hardly that anymore. I’m a thing people might call a friend. Maybe you should try getting some. And not with using your femme fatal tactics. I’ve been told about them already, and I’m not going to fall for it.”

Cat made a  _'hmph'_  noise under her breath and attacked her pie with fierce determination. Snapper causally glanced at his watch, it read  _6:15_. “Just so you know,” he said, “I do have an actual job. Not associated with the JLA. I’m a high school teacher, and I’ve got work in an hour, so if we could really not drag this out longer than necessary that’d be a great help. I don’t really want to have to tie this up later when I’ve got twenty-five other people’s lives to be thinking about as well as this mess.”

Cat looked up from her well dissected pie. “Really now?” she said.

“Yeah.” Snapper said, rubbing his forehead. “I just got two new students in last week. The girl – Megan, she’s sweet as anyone could be. Fits in great. But Conner is a more difficult piece of work. Super book smart, but nearly started a fight before he even got to homeroom on his first day. He’s difficult to get through to. But then a lot of people are at that age. I know I sure was.”

Cat nodded, and an expression of pain and worry flashed over her face for a second before melding back to her professional look. “Kids are like that I suppose.”

Snapper moved his coffee mug to the side and folded his hands on top of each other on the edge of the table. “So you’ve got a kid then?”

“I never sad that.”

“You don’t have to say it. I’m a teacher, I can tell.”

Cat sighed and melted back into the squishy booth. “Fine, fine I give up then. Adam – my little boy – he’s about six now, has gotten himself captured.”

“And?” Snapper asked with a high skeptical look, “You talk to superheros all the time and didn’t both to ask for any,  _any_  of them to help you?”

“Oh I thought about it sure. But that’s part of the deal they have with whoever I guess. I can’t ask for help, if I do they kill Adam.”

Snapper’s face softened and he reached across the table and patted Cat’s shoulder.

“It’ll be fine Cat. I might not be a superhero, but I can help. I know people who can help. Just stop this whatever this is you’re doing.”

“Does that mean I have to tell you everything?”

“What’s more important, your only son or your personal reputation?”

// SEVERAL DAYS LATER

Snapper was sitting at his school desk after hour grading papers as a small blond boy dressed in in a superman shirt sat on the floor playing with a wooden airplane. The boy run up to Snapper desk and chattered away, asking “So you really know Superman, mister?”

“I sure do kiddo.”

“That’s so cool! The coolest! He broke into Toyman’s hideout and was all wham and bam and swish!” the boy said, twirling around in circles, creating mini-wind patters at which Snapper had to hold down his papers to fight against.

“That’s right. Because that’s what Superman does, he saves all kinds of people.”

The boy grabbed the edge of Snapper’s desk, looking down at all the papers, then back at Snapper, before speaking. “When,” the boy said, “will mom be here to pick me up? I’m bored.”

Snapper ruffled the boy’s hair as the door clicked open. “That,” he said, “would be her now.”

“Adam?” the women in the doorway said.

“Mommy!” said the boy as he ran over to a kneeling Cat Grant.

Snapper stood and walked over to the pair. “Well how’s that for side kick work?”

“Brilliant.” Cat said, smiling brighter than all the television lights in the world, “Beyond brilliant.”


End file.
